Intuit Accountants announced a slate of improvements, updates and enhancements to its tax preparation tools in anticipation of the coming tax season.
In addition to updates to is ProConnect Tax Online, ProSeries and Lacerte tax software, the company also launched “
For ProConnect Tax Online, updates include:
- The ability to drag and drop client’s tax documents directly into their return, with no manual data entry needed;
- Smart navigation features that intelligently predict the needed tax forms and suggest what is needed for a client based on data and common workflow patterns;
- The ability to assign and sort client returns by staff members, then re-assign each return as it changes hands;
- The ability to auto-lock e-filed returns to prevent manual entry errors and calculation updates; and
- The ability to get a full view of any users working on the same tax return to avoid version conflicts.
Not currently available in ProConnect Tax Online, but expected to be added soon, are the ability to export client data from standard tax return fields and run queries based on common tax scenarios, as well as the ability to view a summary of the sources and values for tax form fields with multiple inputs, and the ability to jump to the data input screen from the form field with a single click.
For Lacerte, updates and improvements include:
- Lacerte Actionable Steps for Error Resolution, or LASER, offers a set of actionable links to help users quickly resolve problems on their own;
- The ability to manage a tax pro’s EFIN more efficiently directly within Lacerte;
- A new billing profile consolidates billing for Lacerte, Intuit eSignature, and Tax Scan and Import into a single wallet;
- For the Lacerte 200 bundle, an on-screen counter keeps track of returns used and sends a message as the tax pro approaches their limit; and
- The ability to batch send eSig requests on the same document from multiple signers at one go.
In the near future, Intuit expects to be able to send Lacerte and ProSeries users notifications about returns that are affected by new tax law changes.
For ProSeries, changes include:
- Stronger QuickBooks integration;
- Different color backgrounds for current-year and prior-year returns;
- A new billing profile consolidates billing for Lacerte, Intuit eSignature, and Tax Scan and Import into a single wallet; and,
- Custom HomeBase view and filtering are now available for ProSeries Basic, and ProSeries Professional users can automatically transfer custom views from tax year 2020 software to tax year 2021 software.
Intuit plans to soon have ProSeries automatically handle program updates in the background, so users don’t have to worry about them, and to offer the ability to initiate eSig right from the Homebase view.
